'Walking Dead' Recap: Beth's Hospital Story Shocks Us for All the Wrong Reasons

Thanks to turning the clocks back for Daylight Saving Time, I felt like I waited approximately 78540 hours for The Walking Dead to air last night. It doesn’t help that this year it’s being broadcast at 9 PM PST, which is VERY VERY LATE if your birthday was way back in 197*harrrrrrrumph*, you know?

Last week’s show, “Four Walls and a Roof,” left us with the giant dangling question of who was with Daryl at the end of the episode, and based on the sneak peeks it looked like this week’s show was going to catch us up with Beth’s whereabouts. But did Beth come back to the group safe and sound, or did she join the ever-growing list of Deceased Cast Members? If you’re all caught up on the latest Walking Dead, let’s talk about last night’s show, titled “Slabtown.”

Because oh my god, I have some SERIOUS complaining to do.

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We start out with the same scene we saw in the sneak peek: Beth wakes up in a hospital bed, looks out at the spooky forgotten city outside, then arms herself with an IV needle after realizing she’s locked in. In busts Dr. Steven and Dawn the Cop With Chronic Resting Bitchface. I feel for Dawn's condition as I suffer from it too, but we soon learn Dawn’s facial features don’t just naturally settle into a grumpy expression — she really IS grumpy. Also the worst actress ever, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

They tell Beth they found her on the side of the road surrounded by walkers, and now she owes them a big favor on account of them saving her life and all. Beth assumes a look I’ll just describe as “wide-eyed and confused.” She’s pretty much going to hold this for the rest of the episode, folks.

Somehow Beth is now, like, a full-fledged nurse. I’m going to skip a lot of details in this episode because SPOILER ALERT I fucking hated it. Okay, let’s just talk about that right now: this was a TERRIBLE episode, right? It’s like it was written, directed, and acted by COMPLETELY different group of people. I don’t know if the problem was that Beth couldn’t hold a whole episode or if this side story really was just hackneyed and awful, but until that final cliffhanger scene I was either bored or laughing in disbelief at the television.

Anyway, so Beth’s a nurse. I guess she had some medical training from Hershel back in his farm veterinarian days, right? But it still seems ridiculous that she’s helping out like this. This tweet perfectly expresses my feelings about the overall storyline:

Steven shows Beth how they dump the dead bodies down a giant elevator shaft. Creepy. Even creepier is the male cop who starts making the moves on Beth by slowly shoving a lollipop into her resisting mouth in a scene that’s so cringeworthy I have to hide behind a couch pillow. Steven plays some music for Beth and feeds her something he says is guinea pig. Some guy gets brought in with a punctured lung and Steven saves him which makes Dawn slap Beth across the face. Beth has to watch a lady get her arm amputated. What is happening.

Beth meets a nice guy named Noah, who says the only thing worth listening to in this entire episode: he’s from Richmond, VA, where they had walls. The Alexandria Safe-Zone, maybe?

Dawn tries to make up with Beth by giving her a speech about how everyone has to give back, even if they’re a total waste of resources like Beth. Armless Lady wakes up and praises Beth’s humming (COME ON NO ONE LIKES HUMMING) and tells her it’s easier to make a deal with the devil when you’re not the one paying, or something like that. Steven gives Beth some backstory on their group and how everyone has to do their part and he stays because he’s scared, blah blah blah we get it this place sucks where the hell is Daryl.

Finally things pick up when Beth accidentally kills a guy after Steven tells her to use the wrong drug and I’m too bored to even explain why, point is Beth makes a run for it with Noah and they descend into that walker-filled elevator shaft which is actually sort of scary but sadly this part is over with all too quickly and they’re outside, where Noah gets away and Beth is recaptured. After she’s brought back in — NOOOO ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS STORY GETS STRETCHED INTO ANOTHER EPISODE — Beth starts creeping down the hall with a scalpel in her hand, but then she sees a small grey-haired man being brought in on a gurney.

Oh wait no, that’s CAROL. Well, thank god someone brought Carol into this lame story, because I’m not sure if anything else could have possibly redeemed it. Let’s hope Carol wakes up and kills EVERYONE, including Beth for being mostly unwatchable except for that one escape effort.